Friday the 13th will always have a special place in my heart. I was born on a Friday the 13th and it is a sort-of unofficial day of celebration for me and my family. On this Friday the 13th I want to talk about happy accidents but more importantly about using the unexpected as a tool.

What you see in the photos below wasn’t what I had pre-visualized when I hit the shutter release. I had anticipated a much higher contrast from the lighting but that’s not what I got back from the photo lab. In this case the work wasn’t for a client. However I did invest in film, development & scanning. It seems silly to let all that go to waste.

So this is where as a creative professional you put on the thinking cap. How do I use the less than perfect photographic elements as a new starting point and make something better. In this case I wanted to reintroduce color on the gold “C” on the loafer. From there it quickly became fun, testing color relationships and digital brush strokes.

In the end the images are playful with a Warhol screen print feel. That most people can get a sense of I’ve seen this before but a little different. If things don’t go perfect, it’s a good thing because you’ll grow from it.